Kesha writes essay about eating disorder struggle

Pop star Kesha has penned a candid essay about her battle with an eating disorder that ended with a stint in rehab earlier this year.

The singer stayed at the Timberline Knolls clinic in Illinois for two months from January to seek treatment for an eating disorder.

She talked about her issues in the past but has now penned an article for British Elle magazine about how her body image problems escalated out of control.

Kesha writes, “The music industry has set unrealistic expectations for what a body is supposed to look like, and I started becoming overly critical of my own body because of that. I felt like people were always lurking, trying to take pictures of me with the intention of putting them up online or printing them in magazines and making me look terrible.

“I became scared to go in public, or even use the Internet. I may have been paranoid, but I also saw and heard enough hateful things to fuel that paranoia.

“I felt like a liar, telling people to love themselves as they are, while I was being hateful to myself and really hurting my body. I wanted to control things that were in my power, but I was controlling the wrong things. I convinced myself being sick, being skinny, was part of my job.

“My body wasn’t taking it anymore – I was mentally and psychically exhausted. So finally, on a cold December day, I called my mom in tears from a gas station. I told her I just couldn’t do it anymore. She had only been mildly aware of what was going on – rehab had been in the back of my mind, sure, but it was only on that day, at my lowest, it became a reality.”

Kesha calls her first day in treatment “the scariest of my life” and adds that she decided to write about her problems to encourage others with similar issues to seek help.